Patten Free Library’s Tuesday night film series returns on February 12 with “Inherit the Wind,” the first in a lineup of seven critically acclaimed courtroom dramas. The winter series, “Tell It to the Judge,” will run through March 26. Show time is 6:30pm in the library’s community room. Refreshments are provided. All films are free and open to the public.

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“Tell It to the Judge” features some of the best films and greatest performances of all time. In addition to “Inherit the Wind,” the library will screen “Twelve Angry Men,” Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rope,” and “Witness for the Prosecution.” For a complete title list, visit www.patten.lib.me.us or stop by the library.

“Inherit the Wind” (1960) is a fictionalization of the real-life trial of teacher John T. Scopes (B. T. Cates in the film) during the hot summer of 1925 in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. The trial pitted Darwin’s evolutionary theories against the accepted text of religion. Famous lawyer Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy) defends Cates; fundamentalist politician Matthew Harrison Brady (Fredric March) prosecutes. The debates between the two attorneys in the film were taken largely from the transcripts of the trial in which Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan were the big-name lawyers who agreed to argue the case.